A 3 Hour Tour

Yesterday Megan updated her facebook status with this statement, "I have seen heaven and it is called Guilin." I couldn't agree more. We got off the plane Thursday morning and were greeted by our English speaking tour guide, who made sure that we each had a bottle of water as soon as we boarded the bus. (It didn't take long for us to feel like we were in heaven. Compared to Nanjing last week, this was unbelievable.)

Our guide's name was Katherine and she was great. She was about our age and we made friends quickly. She was adorable. She always called her boyfriend her "lover" and she kept telling us about the bars in Yangshou with the sexy steel poles. "Very sexy." Somehow, we missed seeing those. Our group was smaller this time and without Dr. Walters there we may have felt a bit more free to relax. We played games and sang songs on the bus. Our first destination was the Reed Flute Cave. It is massive and is displayed as only the Chinese can do. Much of the cave is lit by neon green, pink or blue lights. In the largest cavern there is a laser light show, complete with music and bubbles. Can you imagine seeing that at Timp Cave? The workers there are all in parkas, even though we thought the temperature was perfect. I guess anything under 85 is just too cold.

After the cave we climbed Fubo Hill and had an incredible view of the city. The formations in Guilin were formed when the whole area was underwater. It is easy to feel like you are still underwater when you look out over the green, otherworldly peaks of the landscape.

We checked into our hotel that afternoon and had 3 hours of free time. That seemed a little excessive, so we decided to add our own extra tourist spot. We would walk to the Solitary Peak/Prince's Palace and have a look around. It would cost 15 RMB. It was a good plan. Then we started walking, and walking. It took about 45 minutes to find our destination and cost 70 RMB to get into the park. However, even though things didn't go as planned, we still had a great adventure. We climbed to the top of the peak on stairs that were at least 8 inches tall. I had a hard time scaling them and can't imagine how the Chinese can walk up them with their petite legs! In the park there was a Peace Cave that we really wanted to see, but the doors were locked. We could hear people in there and became determined to find our way in.

It turned out that only tour guides had the key to the cave, so we waited for a group and then sneaked in with them. It was a little awkward because several members of their group were sneaking pictures of us while they were waiting for their guide to explain the cave. They weren't actually very sneaky. Sometimes I wish they would just ask us for a picture so they didn't end up with pictures taken from strange angles as they creep around behind us to try to get a shot. We are all pretty used to it now. I will post a facebook album when I get home of all of our paparazzi pictures. They are pretty great. The cave ended up being less than impressive, but we were still proud of our mad sneaking skills.

When we were ready to go back to the hotel we were running short on time so had to hail a cab. In China. Without a Chinese speaker. This hadn't happened to us yet. We ended up showing our driver our hotel key card and that worked just fine. On the way back we witnessed a drug deal outside the car window when we were stopped at a red light. More adventure for us!

The next day we took a river cruise down the Li River to Yangshou. It was a 3 hour tour and it was phenomenal. The river cuts right through the famous peaks of Guilin and there were people on bamboo rafts on the river, others doing their laundry, and there were lots of water buffalo along the banks of the river. It reminded me a lot of cruising down the Tracy Fjord last year, but this time it was anything but freezing outside. When we got to Yangshou our tour guide took us to ride another boat. None of us were exactly sure of what the activity was, but she said we might get wet.

Heather and I did NOT want to get wet. We only went on the condition that everyone in the group would promise that they would not get us wet. When we got to the river there were hundreds of bamboo rafts, built for two floating on the river. We each got on a raft and our guides pushed us along the river with their bamboo poles. As we were pushing off a little old lady came out on one of the rafts to try and sell us a water gun or plastic bags. We didn't want the water gun for sure, but it was only as we were pushing off that I realized what the plastic bags were for; they were to cover our shoes and suddenly I knew that we needed them desperately. We practically threw money at her, and she reached out to hand us the bags. They ended up being lifesavers.

We sat back and relaxed and took in the view for much of the ride. Every once in a while someone from a neighboring raft would spray us with water guns and we would put up our umbrellas to protect ourselves. There were rafts in the middle of the river selling beer and dried fish. The whole thing was very quaint and incredibly beautiful. Halfway through the ride our guide gave us a water gun so we could defend ourselves. I don't know if he was being merciful or malicious. Once we started defending ourselves, we had much more to defend. We worked out a system where one person would shield us with both umbrellas and the other would squirt our attackers with the water gun. Of course, this just made them more persistent, and we ended up getting soaked by lots of Asians who were getting a kick out of seeing these two American girls hide behind umbrellas. We had a marvelous time. Everyone on the river was good-natured, and we all came off of the river wishing that the ride had been longer.

After the river we went to a park where there was a 1,000 year old banyan tree. We all walked around it for luck and longevity. Soon it started to rain, and even though we were already soaked, we ran to the bus and back to the hotel. We spent the evening bargaining on West Street and went to sleep incredibly happy. For most of us it was our favorite day thus far in China.

Saturday morning we drove back to Guilin and visited the Elephant Truck Hill. (It looks like an elephant, if you hadn't guessed.) We had some more great paparazzi moments and spent too long posing with elephant statues in the river. Because of time we ended up eating lunch at KFC. I will tell you now that NONE of us complained. We are enjoying the Chinese food, but sometimes we just need something familiar.

After lunch we rushed to the airport and flew back to Xiamen. We got in at 3:30 pm this week, as opposed to last week's 3:30 am. We were exceedingly grateful for that, even though I think all of us would have been happy with more time in Yangshou. This weekend was unbelievable.

How I Spent My Nanjing Vacation

We were up bright and early on Tuesday to catch our 7:30 flight to Shanghi. Once we landed we drove to Zhouzhuang. It is often referred to as the "Venice of China". It is an old canal city that is very beautiful, but it is also very small and packed with tourists. They did have boats running up and down the canals with little old Chinese men and women piloting them and singing traditional Chinese songs. That was one of my favorite things that I have seen thus far.

The Nanjing area is known as one of the 3 furnaces in China and let me tell you, it lived up to its name. It was so incredibly hot. When we first got here we saw all of the girls carrying umbrellas and fans on hot sunny days and we thought it was adorable. Now we know that it is both adorable, and a necessity. We don't think twice anymore about busting out an umbrella for some portable shade.

We also visited a Buddhist temple and had some very fancy meals. I ate duck brain again. I had to. The boys were daring each other to eat from the duck head and when they gave in, they just picked out little bits of meat that weren't much different than the meat on the plate. When Jasen said, "Jennica, show them how it's done," I had to. I couldn't look as I cracked the head open, but I sure ate that brain and showed everyone up. It was a triumphant moment, if not a little disgusting.

On the second day we visited some very beautiful and very Chinese (surprise!) gardens and made the 3 hour drive to Nanjing. (My favorite garden was the "Humble Administrator's Garden". We all made jokes about becoming humble administrators. I am already succumbing to MPA humor. Yikes. At this point I was on day 2 of heat exhaustion and I didn't know if I would make it through the day alive. I was feeling less than congenial and it showed. When Seth and Sarah asked me how I was doing, I said that I wanted to kick a kitten. Now Seth asks me how my KKM (kitten kicking meter) is doing. It is usually very low, just so you know.

However, in that moment it was at 100%. Our tour guide didn't speak any English, so we just had to follow him around and listen to 10 minutes of a Chinese explanation of a rock or a bush or an old room that looked like all of the previous 50 rooms that we had seen and then one of our Chinese speakers would translate the 2 sentences that they could remember and we would shuffle along to the next place. It was excruciating. It was 94 out with 70% humidity. I honestly didn't think I would make it through the day.

We had arrived in Nanjing at the Presidential Office of Sun Yat-Sen. We had just driven 3 hours in a poorly air-conditioned bus and the site closed in an hour. Our guide talked at the entrance, in the heat, for at least 30 minutes. I wanted to die. Luckily I lived through the day, if only just barely.

That night the beds at our hotel were soft. SOFT! I haven't slept in a soft bed for almost a month! All of the beds here (including hotel beds) are just raised sections of floor. They are rock hard. I am used to sleeping on them now, but it was a treat to sleep on a soft bed! We also had "western" breakfasts at our hotels. It was Chinese style french toast, breads and cereal, but it counted and was a relief from some of the crazy food we have been eating. Usually I am very adventurous with food, but after a month I am just craving sandwiches and cereal.

Our last day in Nanjing was incredible. We were met in the morning by an MPA grad who is working in China. He toured with us and acted as our interpreter! It was so refreshing! We saw the tomb of Sun Yat-Sen. We had to walk 392 steps to get there. Each step represented 1 million people who lived in China at the time of his death. It reminded me of the Spanish Steps in Rome. We also went to see the Ming Tombs where the emperor of the dynasty is buried. (Along with his 40 concubines that they buried alive so they could all be together in the afterlife). Yikes.

My favorite part of the tombs were the stone animals and soldiers that guarded the way to the tombs. There were huge stone elephants, camels, lions, and chimera. We took a lot of pictures with them and our Chinese tour guide thought we were nuts. In the afternoon we went back to the Presidential Office and then had about an hour to run through a Night Market. Our group is becoming rather adept at haggling.

At dinner we found out that our flight was going to be delayed more than 3 hours, but less than 4. (At 4 hours the airline has to put you up in a hotel.) That put us flying out at 1:30. It was a long night. However, the airline did hand out Sprite and ramen while we waited. I can't imagine an airline in America ever doing that. We finally got home at about 3:30 and discovered that the University would be having an all day power outage starting at 7:30 in the morning. What a warm (literally) welcome home. We showered before we went to sleep and got up just as the AC clicked off for the day.

We were all especially grateful for church today. It was fast and testimony meeting. When it came time for testimonies, they asked for 2 volunteers from the Xiamen group, so Jasen and I volunteered. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to bear my testimony across all of China. I imagine that I probably won't have many more opportunities to bear my testimony via Skype. It was a little weird to have my back to the group and just talk to the computer, but it was also pretty awesome.

After church we had a 4th of July BBQ! Skip and Callie had brought buns and BBQ pork, and potato salad, AND homemade rootbeer! Alicia provided the salad, brownies, and jello and we brought drinks and chips. I am not kidding when I say that several of us were very close to getting emotional over the welcome sight of such familiar food. We all ate our fill and were incredibly happy.

Traveling abroad always makes me very grateful for all of the blessings that we enjoy at home. I am very grateful to be an American.

We went home and struggled through the rest of the day without electricity. We tried to nap, as we had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before and, as Talia said, "We slept like sweaty babies". It didn't last last long. We went out to find some kind of relief and discovered the only hotel on campus that still had AC and sat on a couch there for 4 hours until the power came back on.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder and there are no words to express how fond I am of air-conditioning.

Today I miss regular toilets (not squat pots), and reliable electricity. I also miss fireworks on a warm summer night. God bless America.

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

Monday was moving day! Our housing turned out to be less than desirable. We found out that the management handed out room keys like candy. We all had to bleach our rooms because they were pretty much filthy, there were cockroaches, rats in the entry way, and finally - bed bugs. Bed bugs were the final straw. As soon as Dr. Walters found out about them, he set out to find us some new digs.

We somehow finagled our way into the international student housing (where we would have been from the get go, if not for some unfortunate logistical issues). We checked in there and checked out at our old place. Once we got the word, we were all packed within the hour. We were quite the sight on our journey to our new place. We had a 20 minute walk with all of our luggage and all of the cleaning supplies, food, and water that we had purchased since we got here. And we thought people looked at us funny just because we were American. Try eleven Americans hauling all they could carry across a busy campus.

It was a little crazy, but in the end we all feel a million times better. A million. We have a security guard at the university gates and also in our building. We have a beautiful view of campus and there are no bed bugs here! What luck! Maybe they put us in the other place first so that we would appreciate what we have now. The only downside to our new little slice of heaven is that we do not have internet in our rooms. We are working on it, but it is going to take a few days. We leave for Nanjing tomorrow, so I anticipate internet maybe Monday or Tuesday.

As of today we have one month left here in China, and I have officially been gone for 3 weeks. Class is going well and we are finally all feeling at home in Xiamen. The food here keeps making me sick, but we have pitchers to boil water in our rooms now, so I think that I will just be eating a lot of ramen over the next month, and try to avoid the cafeterias with all my might.

We had a movie party last night with some of our Chinese classmates. We watched a Kung Fu movie and now we all want to learn some Kung Fu. I don't know if we will get that chance, but my project partner (Vivienne) brought a friend who is a Tai Chi expert, and he agreed to teach us Tai Chi! We had a lesson today and he wore us out. It lasted just over 2 hours and we were practicing in the afternoon heat. We are not very good at Tai Chi, but maybe we will be experts when we come home. We will see. Tai Chi is usually only practiced by the elderly, so everyone got a great show, seeing seven young Americans trying to play Tai Chi. Good times all around.

Well, the group leaves at 5:45 tomorrow morning, so I had best be off to pack!

By the way, I miss pizza, macaroni and cheese, tap water, safe fruits and vegetables, and dry air.

When I leave China I will miss lush greenery, my classmates, choco-pies, magnum bars, and meals for $1.50.

Under my umbrella, ella, ella....

As many of you have probably heard, there has been a great deal of flooding here in southern China. Last I heard 4 million people have been displaced and approximately 400 people have been killed. Fortunately, we are on an island that is just off the mainland, so we have avoided most of the danger.

We have seen a lot of rain though; just the other day we were eating lunch at the cafeteria when a major downpour started. After eating we ran to Heather and Dr Walter's hotel (which is on campus and therefore very close) to wait out the rain. It didn't stop. We decided that we would just have to brave the weather, as we had pressing responsibilities back at our apartment. (Talia is finishing up TA duties and had to turn in grades ASAP). We walked outside and the rain gutters were pouring rivers of water into the streets. We hadn't ever seen anything like it! So, we did what any good American girls would do. We put up our umbrellas and took pictures under the torrents of water coming from the roof of the building. It was a classic Gene Kelly moment and the Chinese people who were around got a good laugh.

Not long after we set out for home, the rain stopped. It was perfect timing. We did, however, still get our feet wet. It had rained so much that there was no way to exit the campus without walking through 6-8 inches of water. I don't think it had rained more than an hour. I am exceedingly grateful for my umbrella. Everyone loves umbrellas here. They are sold on most every street and in Hong Kong they even had umbrella vending machines. Umbrellas are used rain or shine. When it is sunny it is so hot and humid outside that the shade doesn't really make a huge difference, but anything helps, and it is nice for blocking the sun if nothing else. Sunburns are no fun.

The flooding did throw a wrench in the plans of half the group recently. They were supposed to go see the Hakka toulous, (and I was supposed to have a leisurely day here), but the roads were flooded and they couldn't go. There is only one more chance for them to go at the end of July, the rest of our days are booked. Things are going to start getting very exciting. We can't wait. Most of this week has been dedicated to exploring Xiamen, and we are feeling a little "explored out." We have seen most of the area and are ready for new and exciting things! Details to come shortly....

Church in China

We had church today. We all piled into 3 cabs and met Sam (the area group leader) who showed us to his apartment where the meeting would be held. He lives there with his wife Alicia, and their two children Indiana and Havana. They are from Australia and have been here about a year. Skip and Callie were the other two locals who came. They are from Idaho and Skip is here doing business for his family's saddle business. Both couples are relatively young and I think they are glad to have us there. In total there were 17 of us there for the meeting. For church we Skype into Beijing. There is a presidency that meets in a class room at a Beijing chapel and they direct the meeting. The congregation is made up of about 20 groups who are Skyping in from all over China.

This is how it goes: they begin the meeting and after the sacrament hymn the connection is muted for 5 -6 minutes so that each group can bless and pass the sacrament. When the connection comes back on there are two speakers who have been assigned from the congregation. So, wherever they may be in China, they sit at their computer and give a talk. The topic today was the Holy Ghost. It was strange to just sit on a couch in someone's house and listen to church. After the meeting they have a roll call and then they rotate between Relied Society, Priesthood, and Sunday School. (btw they were very impressed that we had a whopping 17) Because there were so many of us, we decided to hold our own Sunday School meeting. Dr. Walters led the discussion and we just followed the gospel principles lesson on the Holy Ghost. It was a very good meeting.

After church Alicia had prepared some snacks and I ate my first fresh vegetables in a week and a half. The Chinese aren't really into raw veggies. They tasted so good. All of us were extremely grateful.

Church was so refreshing and Sam and Alicia and Skip and Callie and all great. It was rejuvenating in so many ways. I am really going to look forward to Sundays here.

Also, we are going to have a big dinner together on the 4th of July. It falls on a Sunday, so we are going to celebrate with our little group. Sam and Alicia, being from Australia, will just be along for the ride, but I am already excited for it. The church is so incredible. Anywhere you go. I am in incredibly grateful. This is an experience that I will always treasure.

Bli-hizzity Bli-zog

So, here in China my blog doesn't work. "That's ok." I thought, "I will start a new one." Unfortunately, that one doesn't work either. So, I will send the posts to my adorable little sister and she will post them here. Now my blog does work!

We are officially at Xiamen University now. We are all moved into our ever so humble housing. After complications with the university we have ended up off-campus in rooms that are, perhaps, less than desirable. However, after many trips to the local super market and lots of bleach and scrubbing, these places are becoming more and more livable. They have AC and that is really the most important thing in the end.

On the last day of our conference we took a sightseeing tour to see the Hakka toulous. They are very old, very round houses that were built at least 700 years ago. They are meant to house 5 or 6 families at a time. They are also in the middle of the jungle. We had a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to get there. We got to see a lot of rural mainland China. On Xiamen motorbikes are prohibited to try to reduce pollution. On the mainland, they are everywhere! Often they will have 3 or 4 people riding on them. It is quite the sight. At the tulous we walked around some old villages and we even saw a presentation of what a traditional Chinese wedding is like. They picked Daniel out of the crowd to play the groom. I told him that he had just gotten the best souvenir ever, but he didn't bring her home.

When we came back we got moved into our apartments and spent the next few days getting settled in and showing the other students around the area as they arrived. When the other big group got in from Shanghi, we all went out for Korean. It was so nice to have something familiar. Talia was the last student to get in. She is my roommate. She is most recently from Detroit, but she has lived all over, including Australia and Germany. Needless to say, she is pretty cool.

We start class on Monday. We will have a 3 hour class from Dr. Walters on M/W and on Tuesday will have lectures on Chinese government from local professors. I am excited, but I am also a little nervous. It is at once exciting and overwhelming to have your first class of graduate school in China. I have certainly learned a lot already and school hasn't even begun!

Today? Today I Ate a Duck Brain.

Originally posted 6/15/10

Right now I am eating a snickers. An hour ago, I was eating a bit of duck brain. We had a 2 hour long welcome dinner tonight that consisted of more than 15 traditional Chinese dishes. It was probably one of the most adventurous meals I have ever eaten. Included were; earthworm gelatin, crab, rock fish, giant prawns, duck soup, abalone, squid, and many other mysterious foods.

We sat at a round table with all of the food on a rotating platter in the middle. There was fried rice with caviar and a big fish that was looking at me with it’s beady eye. At one point Jasen pulled the duck head out of the soup and the next thing I knew, he was offering me some duck brain. How can you say no to that? I didn’t. Yikes. Mostly, it tasted like tofu, but I am pretty darn proud of myself. Overall, tt was a perfect introduction to mainland China!

The conference was good today. Many of the sessions were rushed, and most of the presenters were very difficult to understand, but for the most part, I feel smarter already. I think that is a good sign.